Five years of serv­ing the Hun­gar­i­an com­mu­ni­ty in Cleveland

Father András Mezei arrived in Cleve­land five years ago. He came to serve the local Hun­gar­i­an roman catholic com­mu­ni­ty and more than that. Dur­ing these five years he was pos­i­tive­ly moti­vat­ed to pre­serve, fos­ter and pro­mote the rich eth­nic his­to­ry of the Hun­gar­i­an peo­ple with­in the Amer­i­can-Hun­gar­i­an com­mu­ni­ty in Cleveland.

Mrs. Ildikó Peller was speak­ing after this Sun­day mass in behalf of the Saint Emer­ic parishioners.

It is always a joy­ous occa­sion to cel­e­brate with the Lord, as I para­phrase from the 89^th psalm of the Book of Psalms. Today we have an occa­sion for very spe­cial cel­e­bra­tion, a cel­e­bra­tion that is also an invi­ta­tion for thanks­giv­ing. First and fore­most, our thanks ris­es to our Heav­en­ly Father for his dai­ly bless­ings, for his lov­ing prov­i­dence as well as for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to be togeth­er again here in per­son after the virus imposed quar­an­tine of sev­er­al weeks of isolation.

Today we heard Father remem­ber St. Las­z­lo, the brave Hun­gar­i­an king whose feast is cel­e­brat­ed by the Church on June 27. Sec­ond, we also cel­e­brate today Fathers’ Day along with the rest of the world. May God bless all the fathers and all the spir­i­tu­al fathers.

And third, we are cel­e­brat­ing a mile­stone anniver­sary in our parish. Five years have passed since Father András Mezei arrived from Hun­gary and took upon him­self the duties of St. Emer­ic Parish’s pas­tor and admin­is­tra­tor. Dur­ing these five years we have seen the parish blos­som and grow in many won­der­ful ways.

Father, please know that we all pray for you and in return we ask that you to pray for us. The parish­ioners have asked me to con­vey to you their thanks today.
Thank you …..
 for your untir­ing work for the parish com­mu­ni­ty, for cel­e­brat­ing Mass in church, even dur­ing the pan­dem­ic quar­an­tine pro­vid­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to par­tic­i­pate in the Sun­day Mass in our own home via livestreaming,
 for admin­is­ter­ing the sacra­ments to enrich our spir­i­tu­al lives,
 for vis­it­ing us in the hospital,
 for con­sol­ing us when griev­ing for a loved one, and so much mor,
 for keep­ing alive the tra­di­tions of our Hun­gar­i­an her­itage which
mean so much to us,
 for orga­niz­ing and over­see­ing the prepa­ra­tions of the social events
which bring the parish­ioners togeth­er so that we may bet­ter know
and respect each other,
 for your warmth and good humor which is capa­ble of evok­ing a
smile even on the most seri­ous face.

I sus­pect we may not be the eas­i­est group to work with, I don’t know if you noticed that. How­ev­er, in the spir­it of good humor I will let you in on a lit­tle secret that we have learned from your pre­de­ces­sors here.
Accord­ing to them, the first 5 years with us are the hard­est, and after that it is easy sailing.

Father András, we thank you again for your ded­i­ca­tion to this parish and wish you God’s abun­dant bless­ings for today, tomor­row, day after tomor­row, and forever.

Thank you Father András !!

Csi­bi Lóránd